Aalto, Erkki --- "Towards a Common Defence? Legal Foundations after the Lisbon Treaty" [2012] ELECD 526; in Trybus, Martin; Rubini, Luca (eds), "The Treaty of Lisbon and the Future of European Law and Policy" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: The Treaty of Lisbon and the Future of European Law and Policy

Editor(s): Trybus, Martin; Rubini, Luca

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857932556

Section: Chapter 16

Section Title: Towards a Common Defence? Legal Foundations after the Lisbon Treaty

Author(s): Aalto, Erkki

Number of pages: 18

Extract:

16. Towards a common defence? Legal
foundations after the Lisbon Treaty
Erkki Aalto*

1. INTRODUCTION
The Lisbon Treaty offers several new elements ­ such as the provisions on
permanent structured cooperation and on mutual assistance ­ to the
discussion on the European Union's role in defence matters. The Lisbon
Treaty also recognizes more clearly than before that a common defence is a
possible outcome of European defence integration. So, has the Union
taken new steps towards common defence?
The Treaty on the European Union (TEU) describes a process towards a
possible common defence.1 But what does common defence really mean in
the EU context? One way of analysing the concept is to research how the
Treaty presently regulates defence matters. Title V TEU is normally seen as
the foundation for defence-related cooperation within the EU. However,
this is not the only way the Union deals with defence matters. During the
past ten years, a new kind of defence cooperation in the EU has emerged.
This follows a different kind of logic than the intergovernmental one
because it is based on the internal market aspects of defence.
The thesis of this chapter is that EU defence cooperation is based on two
pillars: first, the development of the intergovernmental Common Security
and Defence Policy (CSDP), and second, the creation of a supranational




* The author is preparing a doctoral thesis on national security exemptions in
EU law at the University of Turku, Finland and works as a Defence Counsellor at
the Permanent ...